Seal and Materials Fire Safety Testing

The Federal Railroad Administration intends to award a sole source requirement to America Public Transportation Association (APTA) for the Passenger Rail Equipment Safety Standards, Construction and Structural Working Group. APTA has identified an industry need to compare material flammability and smoke production performance in NFPA. APTA standards program was initiated at the request of federal safety oversight organizations in an effort to leverage industry expertise in developing standards to improve operating safety. The FRA fire safety standards are not clearly compatible with European standards and there is a need to understand the equivalency between domestic and international standards. APTA has access to data needed for the tests and analyses needed for this effort. They will work with their members who are rail car manufacturers to obtain test results and design data not available to public or other sources. APTA has a long history of working with passenger rail car manufacturers and sourcing needed data and analyses for standards development. Other sources for this effort will have difficulty obtaining the needed data and thus would not be able to effectively perform the tests and analyses.